Hammer Skeleton Diseased???

[Killingtime]

I've already lost one head on this branching hammer. The skeleton is either deteriorating or it has something growing on it. Anyone ever have this issue and/or know what I can do to stop it before I lose anymore of it?

 

[Shirak]

Picture in white light cuz I can't see anything..
Is there sponge on it? Is it just deteriorating and breaking apart?

Water parameters and are they stable? Deteriorating skeleton could be swings in pH or Ca/Alk/Mg causing it to dissolve slowly.

 

[Killingtime]

Parameters;
Salinity - 1.025
Temp - 80
PH - 8.11
Alk - 6.0
Mag - 1480
Cal - 460
Nitrate - 5.5
Phos - .1
All the parameters have been pretty stable except for the ALK. It has dropped from it's typical 7.8 in the last month. But I've had this issue with the hammer before the Alk drop. I have some All For Reef coming in to help with the Alk drop.

I appreciated your quick response. I was trying to wait until it closed up last night to get you better pictures.

 

[Shirak]

Much better photos! White sponge growing. Can be a problem if it gets thick and big enough to start smothering the coral.
I use AFR on one of my tanks. I like it but takes a bit to get the dosing level set. I would be looking to bump the alkalinity up pronto though. A little baking soda will do the trick while you get the AFR set up.

 

[dk2nt9]

Sponge used available space. Should be harmless, I had no problems with them even when they were close to corals. You can scrub it away, if you wish, and siphon out.

 

[TheDuude]

I recently had a similar issue with a frogspawn that I had in my tank for around 3 years. Just slowly started dieing one head at a time. I would remove the effected head and then the next closest would start dying. No pests found despite dipping, tank was stable and all other corals doing fine. Looked like it was being eaten from the inside out.

 

[Killingtime]

I have no problem leaving things be in the tank but once it starts killing off coral... It has to go! I have a metric ton of pineapple sponges and some of what I now believe to be white sponge in my sump and I'll leave it be. I'm really trying to keep my hands out of the tanks as much as possible.

Thank you all for the help in figuring this out. I'll update once I figure out how I'm getting rid of it

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

I recently had a similar issue with a frogspawn that I had in my tank for around 3 years. Just slowly started dieing one head at a time. I would remove the effected head and then the next closest would start dying. No pests found despite dipping, tank was stable and all other corals doing fine. Looked like it was being eaten from the inside out.

I had that same problem with my candy canes when I got them from my LFS. They ended up being infested with some kind of burrowing worm. Someone on here called it a syllid worm or something like that. I FW dipped them and killed the worms and killed the tissue back for like 2 months lol. But they came out better than every.s